Immigration courts fast-track hearings for Somali asylum claims

NPR News

Dozens of asylum cases filed by Somali migrants in immigration courts were suddenly rescheduled and recategorized over the weekend, according to four lawyers interviewed by NPR.

NPR has learned that lawyers across at least three states, Minnesota, Illinois and Nebraska, received notices starting Friday night that moved up hearings for their clients to later this month and next month. Some of these hearings were previously scheduled to take place by 2028; others hadn’t yet been scheduled.

More than 100 cases have been affected, based on interviews conducted by NPR, but attorneys NPR spoke with said the count is likely higher.

NPR spoke with the four attorneys on the condition of anonymity out of fear of reprisals for their clients. They argue that this appears to be a coordinated effort between the Executive Office for Immigration Review and the Department of Homeland Security to reject Somali asylum applications without court hearings. Such a move would fast-track their deportation and limit due process. (The Executive Office for Immigration Review is an agency inside DOJ that houses immigration courts.)

President Trump’s rhetoric toward Somali immigrants, as well as his administration’s emphasis on deportations, raises concern that the notices represent the first step toward the removal without due process of Somali asylum applicants in the country.

There are about 3,254 pending cases from Somali immigrants in immigration court, according to the latest data from the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, and nearly half are out of Minnesota, home to the largest Somali community in the country. Lawyers who spoke with NPR said in all of their rescheduled cases, the clients were Somali citizens who entered the U.S. between 2018 and 2024.

Some of their clients have Temporary Protected Status. In November, the Trump administration terminated TPS for Somalis, setting the program to expire on March 17. Unless recipients are able to adjust their status through avenues including immigration court, those with TPS will be subject to deportation after the program expires.

“There’s a lack of historical precedent for an entire docket to be created for one nationality,” one lawyer said, noting that the Trump administration has also politically targeted Somali immigrants. The cases appear to have been referred to a set of immigration judges who grant asylum at lower rates than the national average, according to an NPR review of EOIR data. “This is the first time EOIR has been so obviously a political tool,” the lawyer said.

Typically, lawyers said, the scheduling of cases is sped up either by attorneys working for Immigration and Customs Enforcement or by the immigrants themselves. The lawyers note that their records do not show any legal motions or requests from ICE to reset or reschedule these cases. To illustrate the change, the attorneys said they went from having as few as zero hearings on their calendar to dozens.

The flurry of rescheduled cases comes as Jim Stolley, the chief counsel for ICE in Minnesota, retired “from public service” at the end of last week, NPR confirmed.

When asked about the rescheduling, EOIR spokeswoman Kathryn Mattingly said the agency does not comment on cases before the courts it runs.

Lawyers spent the weekend scrambling with the sudden notices. In several cases, the lawyers told NPR they were scheduled for multiple conflicting hearings on the same date and time but in front of different judges and in states as far away as Louisiana, Illinois and Texas. EOIR has noted that any immigration judge can hear any case at any time throughout the country to assist with caseloads. “I haven’t seen a demographic pull like this where they are targeting specific nationalities,” said David Wilson, a Minnesota immigration attorney with a dozen affected cases, in an interview with NPR.

Source: NPR